Monsters
by K. A. Maples
Summary: Kaiba reaches out to a fellow victim of abuse.
1. Monster in my Head

_A/N: I'm starting this old thing up again, beginning with an overhaul to fix the many and varied mistakes of the original chapters. I hope everyone enjoys it. Oh. And I STILL don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!_

**Chapter 1: Monster in my Head**

Kaiba Seto walked the halls of the hospital, the heels of his boots making sharp, clicking sounds they hit the tiles. No one paid any real attention to him as he walked, his eyes shadowed by his own dark thoughts.

When he was a child, he had read many, many fantasy stories. There, monsters were so easy to spot. They looked like what they were. They didn't look like normal people.

If only the real world were like that. If only monsters weren't able to hide behind the veneer of respectability. Those were the monsters that nobody saw. That nobody stopped. Not until it was too late. Not until they warped their victims.

He had seen the signs. The bruises, the cuts, the black eyes. He had offered his help... But some people just had to deal with their monsters on their own. And now two people were dead because of it. Well... a person and a monster.

He had asked to tell Arisa what had happened.

Arisa was a classmate of his. Didn't play Duel Monsters, or Dungeon Dice Monsters, or any of the thousands of other games that were so popular with his other classmates. She didn't talk to anyone. Especially not him. The only reason he knew her name was because her father was chief financial officer.

Her father, who had put her in the hospital.

Her father, who had finally pushed his wife too far.

Her father, whose brains now rested atop many a financial form.

Seto had been the one who found the bodies. He had insisted to the police that he be the one to tell her.

The nurse on duty looked up at him, then nodded before returning to her own work. They'd seen each other several times before, when Seto came by to drop off Arisa's homework. He'd volunteered to get it from the teachers after he'd learned she was in the hospital. The look on the faces of Yuugi and his cronies had been absolutely priceless. It was, supposedly, a fall down the stairs. But falls down stairs didn't do the kind of damage she had. Not unless stairs had fists.

He knocked twice on the door, and Janice attempted to sit up. "Hello, Kaiba-sama." she croaked out, getting the words past her bruised windpipe with a bit of difficulty and a lot of pain. "Bit late to be dropping off school stuff." She tried to keep her tone light.

Janice had never been pretty. The bruises didn't help her any.

Seto swallowed a bit and sat down. "Arisa-san... Your father..." He hesitated. How did one break that kind of news? "Your mother came into the office earlier today and shot him, then herself. I'm sorry."

Arisa looked at him, her eyes totally blank.

"We are prepared to offer you anything you need in your time of grief..." God, he sounded so stupid.

"Thank you, Kaiba-sama. Could... could you leave, please? I need a little time."

"Of course." Seto pulled a card out of his pocket and laid it on the table beside her. "If you need anything, at any time, just call this number, alright?"

Arisa nodded weakly, her badly swollen eyes totally closed.

"Arisa-san? I know it hurts... But he won't be able to hurt you anymore."

She opened her eyes as much as she could to look at him, then closed them again. She didn't need to say anything. He knew.


	2. Understanding

**Chapter 2: Understanding**

Seto looked up from his book as Arisa walked hesitantly into the classroom she hadn't seen in almost a month, bowed to the teacher, and handed in all the assignments that he had brought her. The bruises had long since healed, but her nose was now slightly misshapen... and her eyes were dead and cold. Seto hesitated a moment before deliberately catching her eye and nodding to the seat next to him. He ignored the catcalls from the fools around him. They didn't know anything. They didn't understand and they never would.

Arisa slid into the seat without a word to anyone and put her books on the desk. "Thank you, Kaiba-sama." she whispered as the class started.

"Remember... I'm here if you need help."

Yuseke came in late, as usual, and lumbered into the room, his great, meaty body seeming to fill the room. He was the only student taller than Seto, and he was easily twice the billionaire's thickness, and as dumb as a post. The only reason he was still in school at all was because of his terror of a grandmother, who had once threatened to skin him alive in front of his entire class the last time he had skipped school. There was something very amusing about seeing the great lummox cowering in terror of an old woman who was barely taller than Yuugi.

The teacher took several minutes to give him a thorough lecture, none of which penetrated the giant's thick skull, then ordered him to take a seat.

Only two people saw Arisa flinch as Yuseke approached. One of them was Seto. The other was Yuseke.

Now, Yuseke wasn't smart... but he was fairly clever, and he knew a scared girl when he saw one. He shot Seto a quick glance and a nod, then veered off to the left and moved past them, sitting behind and slightly to the right of the young Kaiba.

Things went fairly smoothly from there. The woman Seto had hired to watch Arisa came and got her, and the other students filed out.

"Gram told me about what happened." Yuseke said quietly as he walked behind Seto. "About her Maw an' Paw... and she was real happy when she heard you were helpin' her out, Seto-kun."

Seto didn't answer him. He just kept walking.

"Seto-kun, you ain't the only one." Yuseke said before quickly walking past him. There was something in the larger boy's tone that made him pause. It was something that he had never expected to hear.

Understanding.


End file.
